


here there be drabbles

by tnthdctr



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Tags Subject to Change, characters subject to change, everything is subject to change, warnings subject to change
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-11
Updated: 2017-06-18
Packaged: 2018-10-30 19:24:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 6,621
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10883343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tnthdctr/pseuds/tnthdctr
Summary: The title says it all. A collection of drabbles, 1000 words or less.





	1. Introduction

**Author's Note:**

> I want to get into the habit of writing something every day. Can't promise that this will get updated every day, but expect a few times a week at least. Some may be expanded in a later drabble; some may be expanded into a longer, separate piece. Who knows. Certainly not me. Enjoy.

Donna Noble had met her fair share of strange.

They mostly centered around the clubs, pubs, and bars that made up her Friday nights. And most of Saturday morning. Frankly, she found that she didn’t have much time for strange. She just was not cut out for it. She wanted normal. Normal job, normal house with four walls and a roof. Normal husband. At least she had the house. The job? Eh. Not so much. When the agency had called her they said it was an assistant job. Permanent, too, which made a nice change. Good salary too. Amazing, actually. And they’d asked for her personally. Loved her CV.

            She went for an interview and it turned out to be bloody _Torchwood_. As if. But then she was sat across a table from _Rose Tyler_ – she was nothing like the magazines suggested, Donna realised, she was quite pleasant if not a bit… enigmatic – and then if she’d thought Rose was a little bit odd it was nothing compared to the man who’d burst into the room five minutes later. Pinstriped suit, red chucks, and hair that was organised chaos. She recognised him from the magazines as the boyfriend as mysterious as the woman herself. He’d pulled up a chair next to Rose – right next to Rose, he kept knocking her elbow – and looked at Donna like she was… well, the answer to all his dreams. She decided not to interpret that too much.

            She accepted the job – maybe against her better judgement – regretted it almost immediately when he’d bounced out of his chair and swept her up into a rib-crushing hug – but Rose had tugged him away from her with a cough when it had passed the five-second mark. Bless. He was actually adorable when he was flustered.

            Donna found out extremely quickly – one hour and three minutes to be exact – that the term assistant was something of a loose definition. There was no assisting the Doctor. No one was smart enough for that. Instead, it seemed to be more of a sit there and let me talk at you at five times the speed of human comprehension whilst I work out this problem with my frankly brilliant brain. It was the easiest job she’d ever had but it didn’t half make her head hurt.

            Most of the time it was fun. They got on more than she thought they would. He even taught her to change a plug. He was so proud of her when she managed to do it for the first time without him having to prompt her. Some days – most days – he was a barrel of laughs. Hopping around the lab with all the energy of a five-year-old on twelve different types of energy drinks with a coffee on top. She liked those days. But there were other days, rarer days, where he was quieter. Older. There was a different kind of look in his eyes. Haunted. Rose spent a lot of time in the lab on those kinds of days. She’d wheedle things out of him, getting him to tell them about this and that, and tell Donna the joke that Jake told you yesterday. Between the two of them they eventually managed to drag one reluctant smile out of him. He’d come into the lab – it was work for Donna, but she’s not entirely sure the Doctor has ever had a job – the next day all half smiles and soft eyes and admit things that he normally kept close to his chest. It’d be those moments he’d try and teach her things. They’d sit there all day working on it until they were done.

            For all the time they spent in the lab Donna wasn’t quite sure what it was they _did_. He poked at gadgets and _HA!_ a lot when something in particular went his way, but nothing felt particularly conducive to… well, anything. He was, for the most part, left to his own devices.

Except for those rare days where they got called out into the field.

Donna _loved_ those days.


	2. Complicated

Rose finds him in the middle of the night. She’s supposed to be sleeping – he thought she was sleeping – just as he was supposed to be sleeping too. He’s human(ish) now. Sleeping is a thing he has to get used to. Except he’s not sleeping, and he’s not getting used to it; he’s sitting on a windowsill in a house that Torchwood has taken over. There’s food, and beds, and even alcohol, which he stares for a long time because he’s certain he won’t be able to metabolise alcohol the same way he does when he was fully Time Lord. He almost wants to try it now. No else is awake, it’s just him and a sky full of stars that he’s never going to be able to touch again. He’s trying to try his abilities out. The ones that don’t rely on a Time Lord body, but instead on the brain. He can feel the earth turning if he really concentrates. His sense of time is _there_ but it’s duller, like it’s just out of reach, and he has to fully concentrate just to confirm that it’s September. Anything other than that and he’s lost. He wonders if he’s still telepathic. He’ll ask Rose if he can use her as a guinea pig.

            There’s a creak of a floorboard behind him. He turns to the stairway. Rose is standing there in the shadows, bare feet, arms wrapped around her rib cage. “Can’t sleep either?”

“Haven’t tried.” He turns back to the window, let’s her make an escape if she wants it. He’s not sure if he wants her to take it. She doesn’t. She walks over to him and sits opposite him on the seat. They’re a tangle of legs, and at some point his hand finds its way to her bare ankle.

They sit in companionable-and-only-slightly-awkward silence. She’s looking at the same stars he was, and he’s looking at her and not realising that he’s drawing circles on freshly showered skin.

“What’s going to happen to Donna?” She doesn’t look at him when she asks it, but his silence prompts her to carry on talking. “I could see the way the both of you were looking at her.”

“Humans weren’t made to be meta-crises.” He sighs, tilts his head back to the wall. “Human bodies aren’t capable of handling a Time Lord brain. They’ll burn up with the intensity of it.”

            Her eyes snap to his with a terror he’s only ever seen when she’s been faced with Daleks. “But – is that – will you-”

He reaches for her hand. “I’m fine.  I will be fine. He wouldn’t have left us here if I was going to drop dead straight away. That much I know. He isn’t that much of an arse.”

His bedside manner probably needs some work, but he’ll blame Donna for that one. Rose is still pale, and he can still feel a tremor in her hand, but the look of panic has dissipated slightly. “What’s the difference?”

“She’s a human with a Time Lord brain. I’m a Time Lord brain with a human body. It’s the same thing, but it’s… complicated.” He trails off because it’s the only way he can think of explaining it properly.

“But you’re fine?”

“Yes. If something was going to happen then it would have done already.” She nods and returns her gaze to the window. “As for Donna, her brain will start to burn up. There just isn’t enough neurons in a human brain to cope with it.”

“Will she die?”

“I don’t think so. My best guess is that he’ll wipe her memories. It’ll remove any traces of Time Lord in her. But she’ll forget him. Forget everything she ever did. It’s what I would do, anyway.”

            Rose turns to the window. To the stars and the inky blackness that will remain forever unexplored. “That’s not fair.”

“No, it’s not, but at least she’s alive.”

It takes a while for her to drag her gaze back to him. “Is that enough?” He doesn’t answer, and she carries on. “Would it be better to live your life as something less than you are, or die being everything you possibly can be?”

“I – he – he’s lost so many people. People have died, or they’ve left him, or-”

“He leaves them.” Rose finishes, and doesn’t try to hide the bitterness.

“-Or they choose someone else.” He carries on, blithely, and doesn’t think about how Rose should be in the TARDIS and not sitting on a windowsill with him. “He’s watched Martha, Jack, Mickey all walk away. Sarah-Jane has her own family now. And then there’s me, whose existence is defying at least five different universal laws on existing, and who just committed genocide _again_ , and he knows just what an angry vengeful Time-Lord-Human-Hybrid needs, and that’s Rose Tyler. And he is so very good at manipulating people into making choices that he’s already made for them. You chose me because he wouldn’t choose you. Or wouldn’t let himself choose you because the daft idiot doesn’t he deserves it. And he left when your back was turned because he knew it would make you angry, and maybe that would make it easier for you to move on. And he went back to Donna. Brilliant, fantastic Donna, who tried to make the universe better by shouting at it, who wasn’t afraid to tell the Doctor when he needed to stop, who demanded to be treated with the respect she deserved. And she was dying, and it was his fault because he was so _bloody_ stubborn and so caught up in the fact _you_ were _there_ that he didn’t want to regenerate. And then Donna touched the hand.” He wiggles said hand experimentally. “He’ll blame it on himself. Of course he will. And he can’t stop people leaving, no matter how hard he tries. But he can save Donna. So he will.”


	3. Making History

He finds the book buried deep in the TARDIS library; dusty, and with the binding falling apart. It’s guess work but he flicks through it quickly to find what he’s searching for. Returns to the reading area, and the fire and hot chocolate (and marshmallows) and Rose Tyler. Rose Tyler, freshly showered and no longer covered in stinky purple alien goo. Rose Tyler who very definitely just saved a galaxy single handed because he’d accidentally got himself married to a prince and was on his honeymoon (the Doctor still insisted he had been kidnapped).

He sits down next to her and props his feet up on a coffee table so he can use his bent knees as a resting spot for the book. Rose presses against his side, eyes scrolling down the yellowed pages. “What are you looking for?”

“We were there at a very important time in the Youtal’s history. They’d just thrown off the shackles of a dictatorship that had been going on for _centuries_ , and everyone in the galaxy around them was extremely intrigued about what was going to happen. There were books and reports and thesis’s and dissertations and talk shows. They had an enormous spotlight on them. And then, voila, enter us. Or rather, enter you. You, Rose Tyler, saved the galaxy. And that was noticed. By a _lot_ of people. Who knows how many history books we ended up in.” He turned another page. “I happen to have a book on Youtal history. Kinda bleh, apart from one important moment.”

“How do you know I’m in there?”

“I don’t. I’m seeing. I’m just hoping you will be because, otherwise, it will be really disappointing.”

“Maybe your marriage will be in there too.” She laughs, knocking his shoulder with hers.

“ _Har har_.”

“How did you get away from him, anyway?”

“Told him I was married to my work. And apparently, if you marry a prince then you have to drop absolutely everything and live your life literally always by his side. Can you imagine that? No privacy until the day one of you died.” He shuddered. “No, thank you. So, I ran for it. He’ll get over it. Probably. Maybe. I’ll just never have to go back. It'll be fine.”

Five minutes passes by before he finds what he’s looking for. Rose has finished her hot chocolate and has all but fallen asleep on him (he’s never been used as a pillow before Rose turned up, but somehow he doesn’t mind) as he flips through pages quietly. “Hey,” he whispers, and her head lifts off his shoulder slowly, “I found it.” He twists the book towards her and marks the start of a section with one long finger. “You got a whole section. And a name. I never get a name.”

“Well, you can’t expect them to call you the Doctor. That’s just confusing.”

“How is that confusing!”

She knocks his shoulder again, a laugh falling from her mouth as he pouts at her. She tugs the book towards her, eyes scanning the section he points to. It’s all there, every detail, and she reads it slowly. It feels strange to be reading about events that happened both two hours ago, and yet so long ago (if the state of the book was to go by, anyway).

“You made history today.” He murmurs, looking at her in that strange way he does. Proud, and amazed, and _something_ that she feels like she knows but can’t quite vocalise. Something he can’t vocalise either.

“Stuff of legend. That’s me.”


	4. Noble

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I met David Tennant twice in four days how is everyone else's week going.  
> This is a continuation of sorts from 'Introduction'.

He’d left her in the laboratory – said he’d had to go and see a woman about a piece of coral. Said he’d only be half an hour, but after two hours had passed and he hadn’t returned Donna had got impatient. And fidgety. She went looking for him in the only other place he ever seemed to spend any length of time. The door to Rose’s office was halfway closed and Donna hoped to any God that was out there that she wasn’t about to walk in and be intruding on them… well, so she didn’t want to think about that. She squeezed her eyes shut and pushed the door open. When there were no immediate sounds of scrambling to replace clothes or cover various body parts Donna opened her eyes. Rose wasn’t there, but the Doctor was. And he was sitting on her desk. Cross-legged. Surrounded by wires. He had the sonic screwdriver (which she still had no idea about what it actually _was_ ) tucked in between calf and thigh. He was lucky Rose kept her desk so organised. The laboratory was far less so: papers and books spilling out onto the floor and various counters.

            He was focused on two things; one, was the Transmolecular Neutron Profiler that he’d salvaged from a crashed spaceship ( _they don’t need it,_ he’d said, _the engine will run better without it clogging up the system_ ), and the second, was a piece of beige coloured coral. Well, at least he was doing what he said he was going to do.

“Did we have an argument with a chair?”

“No.” He replied sharply.

“Good. Glad we sorted that out. Is there a reason you’re sitting on her desk? It’s made of glass, you know.”

“Donna, shush.”

He always told her to shush. It never really worked. “What are you doing?” He shoved the screwdriver into his mouth. “You can’t get away with not answering my questions. I’ll ask Rose.”

            “Ask me what?” Donna turned to see the woman in question enter the room with two mugs of tea in hand. “Doctor, get off my desk.”

He grunted and shoved the mess of coral, alien tech, and wires at Donna. He unfolded and himself and slid off the desk with a grace that always surprised Donna. He was so skinny. Scrawny. A mess of limbs that did whatever they pleased. Rose took the opportunity to shove a mug into his empty hands whilst she took the screwdriver out from his mouth.

“I want to know what he’s doing. He won’t tell me. And he tells me everything.”

“I don’t tell you everything. I tell Rose everything, but that’s just cause she’s Rose and you’re just Donna.” He muttered into the lip of his mug as took a sip of his tea. “Ow, ow, that’s hot.” He sat the mug down on the desk and Donna shoved his mess of stuff back into his arms.

“Oh, I’m _just_ Donna, am I?” She bit back, taking one step forward. The Doctor tried to back away but he was trapped against the desk. Rose had suddenly found the floor remarkably interesting. Donna would swear she was trying to hold back a laugh. The Doctor deposited his mess of wires and coral on the desk next to the mug of tea.

“No, no I didn’t – I didn’t mean it like that Donna, I swear. I just mean that Rose knows things that I can’t tell anyone else, it’s nothing against you. It’s – it’s complicated, and-”

“Are you saying I’m thick?”

“No!” He insisted, and he twisted sideways away from her and started pacing. His hands tugged at his hair and made it even more impossible. “No, that’s not what I’m saying. Oh, Donna, if I told you that you’re the most important woman in the whole of creation would you believe me?”

It threw her for a loop, that. “I – no. No, I wouldn’t. And you’re supposed to say that about your girlfriend, not your assistant.”

“You’re more than my assistant. You’ve always been more than that, from the moment you stepped into this building, since you started working for Torchwood-“

“-bit of a loose definition-“

“-you’re my best friend, and don’t say that Rose should be my best friend because she’s something completely different and wonderful and brilliant and amazing in her own right, but you, Donna, you’re…” He trailed off, and his hands made their way back into his hair.

Donna was sure how she was supposed to come back from that so she just stood there. Staring at him.

            “Doctor, I think we should tell her.” He looked from Rose to Donna and back to Rose. He looked at the heap of junk on the desk. “You trust her, right?”

“Indubitably.” He sighed, rather mournfully if you asked Donna.

“And Donna, you trust us?”

The immediate answer is _yes_. She does trust them, deep down, she would lay her life in the hands of the two in front of her. But there’s a hesitation, a _something_ she can’t quite put her finger that keeps her holding back. She sighed. “Yes. Yes, I trust you.”

There was a flicker of hope in the Doctor’s eyes that Donna pretended she didn’t see. Rose smiled. “Come for dinner.”

“What?”

“Dinner. Tonight. We’ll tell you everything. Or, what we can, at least.” Rose nudges the Doctor’s side and he shoots her a sort of sad smile. “Will you?”

And Donna Noble found herself nodding.


	5. Death

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> apologies, I've been on holiday

The Doctor – who refused to go by anything else simply because he refused to _be_ anyone else – was coping with life as a human as best as a human Time Lord metacrisis could do. They went shopping without too many disasters, they had dinner with the rest of her family (only a few disasters there), and they had a house with just a little bit of carpet. Life was good and he hadn’t blown up the lab too many times, and she didn’t get angry when the Time Lord in him overshadowed the human (or vice versa). They were good. They were good. They were good until they were called out into the field, and everything went to shit.

It wasn’t the first time she’d lost a member of her team. It had been a while – a few months before the dimension cannon had started working – since someone had died. It wasn’t the first time that the floor her team had at Canary Wharf was unnaturally quiet. It was usually such a bustle of activity – mostly because the Doctor was almost always circling the room from the minute he stepped in, to the moment he left – full of noise and jests and laughter. Now it was just… quiet. As the leader, it fell to Rose to do most of the paperwork – to report to Pete – to liaise with the family and the coroner and the government. And as leader, the guilt of failing to protect one of her own fell largely on her shoulders (despite others arguing otherwise).

He called himself the Doctor but he’d long since abandoned the suit in favour of shirts and jumpers. Now he was back in a suit – black jacket, black tie, and a dark blue shirt – and it was a startling contrast to his – as her mother called it – ‘domestic’ look. He was eyeing himself critically in the mirror, tugging at his hair, smoothing down his sideburns, a fidgety, nervous wreck of a man. Rose wasn’t much better.

“Have you ever been to a funeral?”

He turned to look at her. She’d long since gotten used to the deer-in-the-headlights look he sometimes got in his eyes when everything was a bit too human –but then there was this look – the haunted, terrified look of a man caught in a life he couldn’t escape from.

“A few.” He sat down on the edge of the bed and bent down to lace up his shoes. Seeing him without his trademark Chuck Taylors was more than a little unnerving. “But it’s never been – they haven’t been…”

“For people you knew?”

“People I cared for.” He shook his head. “No, I did – I did care for them, it’s just-” He tugged a hand through his hair in frustration. He was always so good at talking and talking and talking but saying very little; sometimes he just couldn’t get the words out. “Davros was right.” He turned back to his shoe. “And don’t say that he wasn’t. I don’t look back. I am terrified of looking back because all it is is a trail of bloodshed and violence and death, and I run away from it. I save worlds and galaxies and universes and I turn around and run away because staying behind means dealing with the aftermath. Half the time I’m the reason they’re dead. How am I supposed to … And here – I’m here and Maeve is dead and she’s not coming back and I can’t run away from it – I am _trapped_ and – and I don’t know how to – I’ve never had to…”

Rose sat down on the bed next to him – thigh pressed against thigh because she knows how much he craved physical contact sometimes – and reached for his hand. “I have been to four funerals in my life. This will be my fifth, and it’s the first one where the dress code has been black. I thought dads would have been, but apparently, everyone went wearing as many wacky pieces of clothing they could find. I don’t know, I can’t remember it. My grandma? She always wore these flowery dresses. Like, all the time. I never saw her in anything else. So we all wore the brightest clothes we could find. For Grandad’s it was all about the Hawaiian shirts. Never a dull moment with Grandad. It was always about celebrating their life. What they did, who they were. Never about how they died, or why, or whose fault it was.”

“Rose-“

“No, shush, listen to me. Death sucks. We both know that. And grief is inescapable and all consuming and _confusing_ and it never really goes away. And yes we have to deal with that, and it’s hard and it hurts like a bitch, but we’re also not alone in it. We might not be able to get back in the TARDIS and move on, but we do have each other. And that’s something, isn’t it? You don’t have to grieve alone, not anymore.”

He’s silent for a moment, eyes on the window, but probably seeing something completely different. “I don’t think I know how to grieve.”

“There isn’t a handbook on it. All that anger, bargaining, acceptance, it’s all just bullshit.” He shrugged, scuffed the toe of his shoe against the floorboards. “I’ll ask Pete if we can both have a leave of absence – no, I’ll tell Pete we’re taking a leave of absence. God knows we’ve earned a holiday. We’ll go travelling. Get away from Torchwood, and aliens, clear our minds. And when we come back we’ll be better for it.”

“And leave everyone else to pick up the pieces?”

“This isn’t the first time we’ve lost a team member. We all coped in different ways. Most of them just threw themselves into their work. Jake may need a guiding hand along the way, but he has Rafe. You need me, remember?”

“Yeah, yeah I do.”


	6. Running Away

         He had, during his current life, and during the previous nine too, perfected the art of running. Running towards danger, running away from danger, didn’t matter. He was good at it. He was rather suited to it in this body too. Long legs and a penchant for trainers (that were trainers, no matter how much Donna had argued they weren’t). He was also good at running away from impending doom. He’d managed to stave off the impending storm for two months before an innocent attempt at visiting Jackie Tyler had thrown them straight into the eye of it. He’d spent five months of his own linear timeline running himself ragged trying to find one tiny gap in the universe large enough for a two minute message. After that it was more like throwing himself into danger without so much of a thought towards getting himself out of it. Martha liked to call it recklessness; Donna would have probably called it suicidal.

            Except now, he wants to do anything but. He was not one to put his faith in premonitions and visions of the future.  He knew better than most that time was relative, and any future could easily be re-written. Some futures. Most futures. Of course, he’d learnt that the hard way.  Adelaide was not a lesson he would forget anytime soon. It was his own foolish belief that a Time Lord – the sole Time Lord left in existence – could not control the rules of time – could not bend them to his will. A foolish belief that he could escape a death that felt wholly unescapable. He didn’t want to die – he never did – but he _liked_ being him, and he didn’t think he would feel like that again after the Time War. Never thought that he would be able to look at himself in a mirror and see not disgust, but neither pride, but at least something acceptable. He had sacrificed so much. He had done so much good. He deserved better, didn’t he? Did he not deserve to live out this body until the years caught up to him?

            Running however, was exhausting, Time Lord or not. It took careful planning on his part. He avoided the earth where he could – he knew the threat awaiting him; knew just who it was (because who else would knock four times save a Time Lord long presumed dead) and though he couldn’t be one hundred percent sure, he would bet on Earth being his residence of choice. He stopped rebellions (and he caused a few), and he saved lives, and occasionally he didn’t, and at one point he thinks he may have got married but the memories of that are somewhat weird and don’t feel quite _right_ when he puts them together in his head. As long as there were no hints of another Time Lord being present then he was safe. He was fine and he was alive. It was probably a dangerous way of thinking – _can’t die because the Master isn’t here_ – ran through his head more often than he cared to admit, and he skirted death more times than he would like.

            He felt it, felt it like a giant clock in his head, ticking down the seconds until no matter where he went, no matter where he ran, or who he saved, he would never come out of it alive. It was fine – at first – he was very good at stubbornly ignoring things, and he ignored this more than most – but the more he did the louder it got and the heavier it got, and in the end he couldn’t work out if he felt more like Captain Hook with Tick-Tock the crocodile, or Frodo and the One Ring. Neither of those ended particularly happy, he just had to choose which one he preferred. Well, Frodo didn’t die. Ish. Sort of. Arguable, that. And he sort of doesn’t die, except he does, he will, and he dreads to think about how his current frame of mind will affect his next regeneration.

            After his doomed trip to Mars, and after the death of Adelaide, and the appearance of Ood Sigma in the snow, he stopped running. He was _tired_. Tired of constantly fighting loosing battles, whether they be with himself, or with whatever threat was threatening to burn down cities and galaxies and universes this time. This was it. He could feel it, a shadow that clung to him, like death was just behind him, with one terrible, terrible hand reaching out to touch him. He knew where he needed to be and he knew where he needed to go, but it didn’t mean he had to go quickly. There was still fight in him, still enough stubbornness and rebellion to defy the wishes of the universe for a few moments longer. He’d always been good at going the long way round.


	7. Obsession

Rose finds the Doctor in the living room, half under the TV stand. His crossed legs are tapping along to some song he has stuck in his head, and she can hear the whirring of the sonic screwdriver. It’s been five days since Christmas, five days since robot Santa’s and killer Christmas trees, and standing in the ash of the spaceship, and five days of getting used to a different man, that was, in the important ways, the same man. She’s pretty sure they could leave any day they want to, but he’s giving her space, giving her time to get used to the pretty drastic changes. She’s not sure if she wants it or not.

“Do you remember what happened the last time you messed with something of my mum’s?”

There’s a thud as he lifts his head and whacks it against the underside of the table. Rose doesn’t try to bite back her laugh. The Doctor shuffles out from under the stand with his screwdriver in his mouth and rubbing at a spot on his forehead. “S’not f’ny!”

“Oh, I dunno, looked pretty funny to me. What were you doing?”

“Doing to your mother’s TV what I essentially did to your phone. Universal signal. It’ll pick up every single channel known to man, alien… whatever.”

“And my mum asked you to do that?”

“Not – not in the strictest of senses…” he replies, somewhat bashful, rubbing a hand at the back of his neck. “But the implication was there. She’s got hooked on a soap from the planet Tabouseh.” He pointed a finger at her, which was supposed to probably be threatening, but wasn’t. “It had absolutely nothing to do me with me, and she certainly did not walk in on me watching it. But I thought I could fix her TV so she could carry on watching it… if she… happened to … want to. Least I could do.”

            Rose grabs a blanket and wraps it around her shoulders before sitting on the sofa. It’s the middle of the night but she’s not tired. It comes with the territory. Living in a time machine does lend itself to time lag, of sorts. “You don’t need to pretend you don’t like her you know.”

Quite frankly, he is adorable when he’s flustered. He blushes more, and it brings out the freckles.

“I don’t – I’m – quite fond of Jackie – in terms of mothers she’s… not the worst I’ve encountered.”

*

Five months later he takes her back to her mothers to visit again. She’s drained – emotionally and physically, too confused about trying to figure out whether or not she’s grieving for Mickey – and just wants to be at home. Just for a few days. She wakes in the night – that blasted time lag again – and goes in search of the Doctor. She finds him – surprisingly – on her mothers sofa, with her mother – watching some TV show that looks so blatantly alien she knows it couldn’t possibly be something from earth. At least, not twenty-first century earth, anyway. They’re both engrossed in it – Rose wouldn’t be surprised if there was a bowl of popcorn between them, but there are five different mugs on the table – muttered conversations between the two when some interesting plot development happens. She was going to just let the Doctor talk to her about… anything, really. A distraction. But she feels intrusive, and she doesn’t want to ruin the moment. It’s nice to see him interacting with her mother in a genuine manner, rather than just for her sake. She’ll go back to the TARDIS, distract herself with the library, or the garden, or maybe go for a swim.

*

Cross-dimensional travel is much the same as time travel. Screws with her sleeping pattern. Two weeks and she’s still awake at odd hours of the night. She wakes to an empty bed – not surprising, the Doctor is up at odd times as much as she is – and goes looking for him. They’re still at the Tyler manor for now – looking for a place to stay that is more them than her current one bed apartment a stone’s throw from Torchwood. She finds him in the living room, his head underneath the TV. The sonic screwdriver – the one that had fallen from a dead Time Lord’s hand in a universe a long way away and had subsequently been stolen back from UNIT by Rose and then presented to a human Time Lord that needed it more than she did – was buzzing and he was humming, one socked foot bouncing in time with it.

“I am having a serious case of déjà vu.”

There’s a familiar thud – a whole load of alien swearing which is definitely from Donna – and then the human Time Lord in question emerges. He looks so thoroughly domesticated in his pyjamas.

            “She’ll throw you out if you blow her TV up.”

“Oh, ye, of little faith. I may have blown a couple of microwaves up in my time but I am _good_ at televisions. Besides, Jackie asked me to do it.”

That took her by surprise. “She did?”

“Your mother is obsessed with alien soaps, Rose. _Obsessed_. And she says she has six years worth of them to catch up on. Credit to her, I think she waited to see if I was actually going to blow the world up before asking me.”

“And they have the same soaps in this universe?”

“I hope they do, otherwise I think she’ll never talk to me again.” He tugs a hand through his hair and then smiles at her, that same cheeky smile that he often throws at her before they find themselves running for their lives. “Still, I suppose there could be worse things.”


	8. Answers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> takes place between Turn Left and The Stolen Earth

“It’s the end of the universe.”

Before Donna could even ask him to clarify what _end of the universe_ could possibly mean he’s grabbing her by the hand and pulling her out of the console room and into the network of corridors beyond. The first twenty or so rooms they pass she recognises – kitchen, library, gardens, her bedroom, the other library, the wardrobe, any number of rooms that is full of a lot of junk and which she commonly refers to as his ‘offices’, what she thinks _might_ be his bedroom but has never seen anything beyond a glimpse of the corner of a bed, but beyond that it’s a labyrinth of untrackable lefts and rights. She’s not scared, he walks as if he’s on a mission, and with the confidence of a man who knows exactly where he’s going. It’s his muttering under his breath that concerns her. She can’t hear what he’s saying, couldn’t even call it English. He only shows the slightest of hesitation when he finally draws to a halt outside of an unassuming door in an unassuming corridor.

“I haven’t been in here in four years.” He says, finally, staring at the door. “I didn’t think I’d be back here.” He shivers, almost imperceptibly, and then pushes the door open.

He walks in like he’s entering a shrine, slow, almost unsure. Donna stays where she is unsure whether she’s allowed in. There’s so many places that she feels are off limits – and if even the Doctor hasn’t been here in four years…

“Come in here, Donna.”

The room isn’t what she would call messy… it’s just… lived in. Or was lived in, evidently. A bed that hasn’t been made, a laundry basket that is close to overflowing, a dressing table with half used make-up, an en-suite with half empty bottles of shampoo and conditioner. There are trinkets and mementos and photos and books and magazines left open. The Doctor is standing by a bookshelf, what looks like a thick and heavy photo album in his hands. He’s flicking through them frantically, Donna can see baby photos passing by in a blur, a young woman’s life, brunette and then a brunette turned blonde, passing by in seconds. He finally stops on one page.

“Look at these, Donna.”

She peers over his shoulder. Gasps. She would recognise her anywhere. The jawline isn’t as sharp, the hair blonder and brighter, and the clothes are those worn by a girl travelling through time and space, and not those of a soldier living in a warehouse. Some photos are just her – candid’s that caught her unawares – a couple are family photos, her and an older woman she assumed was her mother, and a young black male – but there’s one of her and the Doctor – a much younger looking Doctor – both of them wearing paper crowns – looking not at the camera but at each other. Normally she’d fake gag at something like this – it’s that yucky kind of love (because yes, she may be unlucky in it but Donna Noble recognises love when she sees it), with puppy dog eyes and cheeky smiles and touching each other just for the sake of physical contact-  but even just looking at the Doctor – vulnerable and scared and wide-eyed and breathing ever so slightly heavier than usual – she knows this is not the time for joking.

“Was that her? You have to be sure – you have to be one hundred percent – was she the woman in the other universe?”

It feels like a question that doesn’t need an answer. It feels like he already _knows_ what the answer is going to be, he knew from the moment she said those two words, he just needs her to confirm it, to allay his fears, or something. He’s practically vibrating next to her. She hopes her answer is what he wants to hear.

“Yeah,” she says, turning to look at him, “she looks older, but it was definitely her. Who is she? Is that…”

The look he gives her – those big wide eyes, soft and sad and full of hopeful longing, but scared, so very scared, answers her question.


End file.
